For the lead bowler delivering the first bowl in the end, line is not the most important concern, weight is.  If you are within three feet on either side of the jack, that is probably not going to get you a reprimand but being three feet short may. What one must emphasize is proper depth and it is your first bowl in the end that is most likely to be wrongly weighted. It is OK to be a yard past the jack and one should err on the side of being that distance past rather than short. Four feet short is a bad bowl; four feet long can be useful for the development of the head. Four feet short c ..read more

The true shoulder in a lawn bowl’s delivery is that point on the path of the lawn bowl at which it is furthest displaced from the center line. This is the point at which it ceases moving towards the rink boundary and starts returning towards center rink. A perfectly delivered bowl actually rolls over the point that is this ‘true shoulder.’ The imaginary shoulder is that spot on your aim line that is the same distance down the rink as the true shoulder. The imaginary shoulder is the stare point one aims at when preparing to deliver a bowl from the mat. This distinction had never been taug ..read more

A popular choice would be David Bryant. What is interesting to me about this, is that from everything I have observed in my 12 years playing bowls in Canada, the USA, Portugal, Malaysia, and Australia I have never seen a single bowler who has modeled his/her delivery style after him. Neither have I ever found a book recommending his form or met a coach teaching his style. The reason for this becomes apparent if you try to imitate. To achieve it would require you to have the skill of a gymnast!   If you have never seen David Bryant bowl, there is a famous YouTube video of his wor ..read more

In the northern hemisphere, on slow rinks, the most frequently adopted strategy in lawn bowling contests is to deliver very long jacks when the opposing team seems to prefer something shorter.  Even so many bowlers underestimate the effectiveness of this strategy because they do not realize how dramatically the average bowler’s line control falls off as the jack length increases. As jack length trends towards full length each additional meter of length is responsible for a greater and greater decline in accuracy.  That is to say, many bowlers underestimate the significance of jack l ..read more

  In one of my old blogs on this Greenbowler site, I admitted that in tournaments I often keep a business card in my pocket, and on the back of it I record my aim points on the forward banks for forehand and backhand deliveries in both directions. The reason-- too often I  have difficulty remembering these aim lines during a contest. I thought perhaps that this was a unique failing of mine but a situation arose today playing in a roll-up at Valverde LBC that seemed to increase the likelihood that others might be encountering the same forgetfulness. We were playing on a rink th ..read more

When they are in serious competition, the Greenbowler blog has consistently advised readers to use variations in jack length and mat position in their tactical and strategic planning. But it appears there is another variable that I haven’t presented adequately. The reason was I just didn’t consider it that important. When other literature mentioned it, I discounted those claims. Today, at Valverde LBC, I played a 21-up singles match in which my opponent acknowledged to me after the match that what I had discounted up ’til now was what seriously upset his game- more than any other element. A ..read more

During a visit with a friend in Sun City Arizona, I was advised that since he now played with a bowling arm, he now used a number 4 bowl instead of the number 3 because grasping the bowl in one’s hand was no longer relevant. This got me thinking. Why stop there? The larger the bowl’s diameter the more measurements your side is going to win and the better your score! A size 00 bowl, (and these smaller bowls are becoming more and more popular), has a diameter of 116 mm. While the size 6 is  128.5 mm in diameter. If the centers of these two bowls are the same distance from a jack, th ..read more

  Just because your lawn bowling opponent(s) can successfully bowl to a jack twenty-seven meters from the mat doesn’t mean at 30 meters the same success will persist. It is that last little stretch in length that so often makes the difference.   Even if you are worried that you might deliver the jack into the forward ditch, it shouldn’t deter you from trying to deliver a really long jack, if you have reason to believe that that would benefit your side. Even if you do lose the jack occasionally in the front ditch and give away the mat and jack length to the other side, isn’t it bett ..read more

  The bowls season in Canada is well past so my wife, Tish, and I spent a fortnight in Honolulu Hawaii where we could play some bowls at the Honolulu Lawn Bowling Club. It’s not our first visit, we discovered this club, the only one in the state, last time we went to our timeshare at the nearby Hilton Hawaiian Village. The club is just a 20-minute walk or a bus ride of a few minutes from where we were staying. The club has retained all the good characteristics I wrote about on my first visit but with a refreshed cast of characters! If you are in the area, check online for the hours ..read more

The Greenbowler blog has recently researched the effects of rain and wind on the delivery and rolling characteristics of a lawn bowl. There is another environmental factor which has some importance but it does not depend upon the weather from day to day— it changes from hour to hour. I was reminded of the significance of this factor while watching a video from the 2023 Australian Bowls calendar. The commentators noted during the match that the competitors were increasingly leaving their bowls a bit short. They quoted an Australian saying, “After four a meter more.” I had never heard this but ..read more